Comet Over Hollywood: You can't get a role with a gun

I had always read that “Annie Get Your Gun” was a horrible experience for actress Betty Hutton.

Actors and stage workers were cold towards her, she wasn’t invited to the movie premiere and MGM wasn’t the warm home she found at Paramount.

For years, I read this treatment was attributed to the fact that Betty Hutton quickly stepped in to the role when Judy Garland was unable to make the film. MGM workers resented that someone was kicking their Judy out of a highly coveted musical biography about the sharp shooter Annie Oakley.

After reading Hutton’s autobiography “Backstage, You Can Have.” I found the back story about wasn’t so cut and dry.

When the Irving Berlin musical first hit Broadway stages in 1946, Hutton knew she wanted to play the part.

Hutton begged Paramount to buy film rights. Paramount was giving her weak films like “Dream Girl,” and she felt that Annie Oakley would have helped bolster her career. However, Arthur Freed at MGM paid Irving Berlin $650,000 for the play and planned on MGM’s top star Judy Garland to play the role.

“I was heartbroken,” Hutton said. Besides Hutton, Ginger Rogers also campaigned for the role and was told Annie Oakley doesn’t wear silk stockings and high heels.

However, when MGM began filming “Annie Get Your Gun” it was full of disasters:

•New star Howard Keel fell of his horse and broke his ankle.

•Frank Morgan, playing Colonel Buffalo Bill, had a heart attack and died and was replaced by Louis Calhern

•Busby Berkley started out being the director and was fired and replaced by Charles Walters who was then replaced by George Sidney

•Judy Garland didn’t want to do the movie at all.

Garland felt that she wasn’t right for the role, and footage showed Garland in a few shots they filmed with her as Annie. Garland started not showing up to the set and her contract was suspended.

Garland was not unhappy that Betty Hutton took her place; in fact she later told Betty Hutton that she did a good job and was pleased that Hutton got the part.

“Years, later while we (Judy and Betty) were both working in Las Vegas, Judy and I became very good friends,” Hutton wrote. “She told me then she had never wanted the picture and it wasn’t right for her. She admitted the part was right for me, and after all was said and done, she was happy I got it.”

The problem was how Hutton handled getting the part. She let everyone know how much she had wanted it.

Hutton told the Associated Press, “I’m so excited I can’t sleep. For four years I’ve been trying to do Annie. I haven’t been happy with the pictures I’ve had since Buddy DeSylva left Paramount and I pleaded them to buy it. I really bawled them out when they let MGM get it.”

Not only did this comment not make Hutton very endearing to MGM players but also didn’t help her floundering relationship with Paramount.

It was difficult for Hutton to come into an unfamiliar studio. She had found a family at Paramount and described MGM as much more formal-cast members addressed her as Miss Hutton rather than Betty.

Though MGM was unfamiliar, it didn’t stop Hutton from trying to work under her terms.

She admits that it was “probably too much Hutton, too fast.” She wanted to be applauded when she did something good and insisted on having air conditioning on the set.

Hutton was a force of nature and gave her all in performances. Louis Calhern, who played Colonel Buffalo Bill, told Keel, “She’s upstaging you.” Keel brushed it off saying he was new and that the camera would come around to him once in a while, according to Howard Keel’s book “Only Make Believe: My Life in Show Business.

Regardless though, Keel said he thought Hutton was sweet and they got along okay. He admitted however, that the rest of the cast wasn’t happy with her.

After “Annie Get Your Gun,” Hutton made three more feature films and a handful of television appearances. Her difficult behavior and use of pills ended her career.

It’s almost ironic how Hutton’s career ended for one of the main reasons Judy Garland was fired from the film: pills. Unfortunately, while Judy was still revered and loved at the time of her death in 1968, Hutton was largely forgotten by the early 1960s.

Reach Jessica Pickens at 704-669-3332 or jpickens@shelbystar.com. Follow on Twitter at @StarJPickens and at her film blog, Comet Over Hollywood at www.cometoverhollywood.com.

I had always read that “Annie Get Your Gun” was a horrible experience for actress Betty Hutton.

Actors and stage workers were cold towards her, she wasn’t invited to the movie premiere and MGM wasn’t the warm home she found at Paramount.

For years, I read this treatment was attributed to the fact that Betty Hutton quickly stepped in to the role when Judy Garland was unable to make the film. MGM workers resented that someone was kicking their Judy out of a highly coveted musical biography about the sharp shooter Annie Oakley.

After reading Hutton’s autobiography “Backstage, You Can Have.” I found the back story about wasn’t so cut and dry.

When the Irving Berlin musical first hit Broadway stages in 1946, Hutton knew she wanted to play the part.

Hutton begged Paramount to buy film rights. Paramount was giving her weak films like “Dream Girl,” and she felt that Annie Oakley would have helped bolster her career. However, Arthur Freed at MGM paid Irving Berlin $650,000 for the play and planned on MGM’s top star Judy Garland to play the role.

“I was heartbroken,” Hutton said. Besides Hutton, Ginger Rogers also campaigned for the role and was told Annie Oakley doesn’t wear silk stockings and high heels.

However, when MGM began filming “Annie Get Your Gun” it was full of disasters:

•New star Howard Keel fell of his horse and broke his ankle.

•Frank Morgan, playing Colonel Buffalo Bill, had a heart attack and died and was replaced by Louis Calhern

•Busby Berkley started out being the director and was fired and replaced by Charles Walters who was then replaced by George Sidney

•Judy Garland didn’t want to do the movie at all.

Garland felt that she wasn’t right for the role, and footage showed Garland in a few shots they filmed with her as Annie. Garland started not showing up to the set and her contract was suspended.

Garland was not unhappy that Betty Hutton took her place; in fact she later told Betty Hutton that she did a good job and was pleased that Hutton got the part.

“Years, later while we (Judy and Betty) were both working in Las Vegas, Judy and I became very good friends,” Hutton wrote. “She told me then she had never wanted the picture and it wasn’t right for her. She admitted the part was right for me, and after all was said and done, she was happy I got it.”

The problem was how Hutton handled getting the part. She let everyone know how much she had wanted it.

Hutton told the Associated Press, “I’m so excited I can’t sleep. For four years I’ve been trying to do Annie. I haven’t been happy with the pictures I’ve had since Buddy DeSylva left Paramount and I pleaded them to buy it. I really bawled them out when they let MGM get it.”

Not only did this comment not make Hutton very endearing to MGM players but also didn’t help her floundering relationship with Paramount.

It was difficult for Hutton to come into an unfamiliar studio. She had found a family at Paramount and described MGM as much more formal-cast members addressed her as Miss Hutton rather than Betty.

Though MGM was unfamiliar, it didn’t stop Hutton from trying to work under her terms.

She admits that it was “probably too much Hutton, too fast.” She wanted to be applauded when she did something good and insisted on having air conditioning on the set.

Hutton was a force of nature and gave her all in performances. Louis Calhern, who played Colonel Buffalo Bill, told Keel, “She’s upstaging you.” Keel brushed it off saying he was new and that the camera would come around to him once in a while, according to Howard Keel’s book “Only Make Believe: My Life in Show Business.

Regardless though, Keel said he thought Hutton was sweet and they got along okay. He admitted however, that the rest of the cast wasn’t happy with her.

After “Annie Get Your Gun,” Hutton made three more feature films and a handful of television appearances. Her difficult behavior and use of pills ended her career.

It’s almost ironic how Hutton’s career ended for one of the main reasons Judy Garland was fired from the film: pills. Unfortunately, while Judy was still revered and loved at the time of her death in 1968, Hutton was largely forgotten by the early 1960s.

Reach Jessica Pickens at 704-669-3332 or jpickens@shelbystar.com. Follow on Twitter at @StarJPickens and at her film blog, Comet Over Hollywood at www.cometoverhollywood.com.